Professor Kim’s book is an extremely valuable addition to the literature. Kim adeptly distinguishes wrap contracts from traditional contracts. Perhaps more importantly, Kim distinguishes wraps from boilerplate paper contracts. In this review I will argue that Kim’s case for wrap exceptionalism could be taken even further for parties in highly interactive relationships, such as the relationship between social media and their users.

One of Kim’s most valuable contributions is her explication of how the form of wrap contracts accounts for their proliferation, content, and problematic legal treatment. The absence of any meaningful physical restraints on wrap contracts, like the available area on paper for text and the ceremony required to actually sign paper contracts, has resulted in a difference in kind from other contracts, not just a difference in magnitude.

Kim also focuses on the problematic content of wrap contracts. Kim’s thesis is that the form of wraps makes reading them so burdensome that problematic content is inevitable. Drafters can insert terms that are unfavorable to the adherent because they know that adherents will not read them. Kim develops a helpful taxonomy of shield, sword, and crook terms. These categories can be roughly described as limitations on liability for offered services (shield terms), terminations of rights held by the other party (sword terms), and appropriation of benefits unrelated to the consideration that is the subject of the transaction (crook terms).

I agree with Kim’s observations that both the form and content of wrap contracts make them substantially different than paper contracts, including paper boilerplate. But Kim may have left out an important variable in her case that wraps deserve exceptional legal treatment. Kim could better highlight the importance of the service being offered by the drafter of the wrap contract and the form that service takes. Many of the examples used by Kim involve standard commercial transactions such as Amazon or iTunes. But commercial websites are unlike other websites, notably the social web. Social media offer tools for social interaction and self-expression, which, until the Internet, have been largely boilerplate-free activities.

Social media wrap contracts differ from their commercial website counterparts in at least two important ways: 1) Social media are much more interactive than traditional websites. This interactivity is an opportunity for websites to obtain specific assent to terms; and 2) many social media wrap contracts include social behavior restrictions, such as community guidelines. These restrictions simultaneously cost and benefit adherents precisely because they are universally applied and non-negotiable.

Greater Interactivity Can Lead to Specific Assent

All websites are becoming more interactive, but few more so than social media. Users can utilize privacy settings, tag others, and click and drag in ways that communicate preferences to websites like never before. These user expressions and the design that enables them are ideal opportunities for meaningful assent. In many ways, website design can communicate messages to users more effectively than boilerplate ever could. For example, privacy settings often make it clear that “only friends” or authorized “followers” will have access to your information. If a website’s data access and use policy is also part of the wrap contract, should the settings or the wrap govern who can access user info?

Kim proposes that “drafting parties should receive specific assent to obtain rights belonging to the nondrafting party that are not directly created from the drafting party’s license or promise. In other words, sword and crook provisions…require specific assent but shield provisions do not.” (195) Assuming binding privacy policies generally operate to effectuate consent to a website’s collection and use of the adherent’s data, privacy settings would seem to be an effective way to obtain specific assent under Kim’s proposal.

Community Guidelines Benefit Contract Adherents Yet Also Leave Them in a Bind

Social media often requiremany commitments from their users. For example, Facebook requires its users to promise not to “provide any false personal information on Facebook,” “bully, intimidate, or harass any user” or “do anything unlawful, misleading, malicious, or discriminatory.” These kinds of terms make it virtually impossible to interact online without fear of breaching the required contract. Users can either hardly use the website or roll the dice and hope they don’t get caught.

Social media often require commitments in the form of “community guidelines” that are sometimes incorporated into the terms of use. For example, Facebook, Twitter, and Flikr all have community guidelines that are ostensibly provided to keep the online community civil and protect other users. Many of these rules are quite broad and vague. Professor Kim vividly illustrates the fallout from violations of broadly drafted terms when discussing Young v. Facebook, a dispute over the termination of a user’s Facebook account for violation of Facebook’s policies.

Yet there is a dichotomy that makes these terms difficult to categorize. They are a cost to the user who must refrain from certain kind of otherwise permissible conduct, yet they are also a benefit to that same user because every other user also promised to refrain from the same antisocial or illegal behavior. Here, the uniform and non-negotiable nature of wraps is precisely what makes them attractive to users. These terms can be used to combat scourges like hate speech and revenge porn.

While Kim recognized that wrap contracts are beneficial because they facilitate mass transactions and minimize risk for drafters, she overlooked the benefits that wrap contracts can have when terms set rules for how Internet users interact with each other.

Given that social behavior restrictions simultaneously cost and benefit the adherent, it is unclear if Kim would subject these terms to additional scrutiny as “sword” or “crook” terms.

These observations are meant to support Kim’s proposals, not counter them. Kim rightly criticizes the current legal approach to wrap contracts. Her solutions wisely harness the elasticity of existing contract doctrine to right the ship. Social media vividly illustrate the problematic proliferation of wraps in unprecedented areas. Yet they also represent opportunities to effectuate Kim’s proposed solutions.